Program Areas

Program Areas  /  Engagement of Civil Society and the Public in Judicial Reform

Engagement of Civil Society and the Public in Judicial Reform

 

The role of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the development of judicial reform legislation has been quite limited. Yet civil society involvement in the process is critical if these reforms are to meet the needs of all Ukraine. To increase public awareness about objectives of the judiciary and to improve interaction and establish a dialogue among decision makers, civil society organizations and the public as well as the FAIR Justice Project will continue to work with courts regarding the importance of:

  1. Introduction of new PR technologies;
  2. Creation of conditions for media access to open court process;
  3. Correcting inaccurate information in court coverage;
  4. Creating civic education materials on judicial reforms;
  5. Developing civic education activities aimed at raising public awareness of rights and responsibilities;
  6. Developing manual on strategic communications for courts;
  7. Developing, piloting and implementing communications strategies for courts;
  8. Establishing call-centers for courts.

The FAIR Justice Project builds its activities on successes achieved under USAID Ukraine Rule of Law Project (UROL). From 2006 to 2011, UROL developed a number of public awareness and journalists programs and produced information brochures and leaflets publication. UROL created educational movies and participated in the development of draft regulation on interaction of courts and media, a pilot communications strategy for courts designing and implementation, and support of selected pilot courts in developing software and establishing call-centers.
FAIR plans to involve CSOs in a substantive research on pending legislation and organizing public discussions involving lawmakers. Also the CSOs will prepare public awareness materials and provide media coverage on the most pressing issues of judicial reform. Moreover, we will support CSO coalitions to advocate for the passage or amendments of pending legislation
In addition, under this component FAIR will support such activities as monitoring court performance, monitoring the implementation of judicial reform legislation such as the new judicial and discipline processes. Regarding the monitoring of court performance, we will continue to support citizen report card (CRC) activity to complement the internal court performance evaluation. CRC surveys supported by former UROL Project showed that CRC methodology is an efficient tool that measures court performance and presents strengths and weaknesses for each pilot court as well as for the overall justice system. Moreover, CRC surveys give the opportunity for civil society organization to participate in improving court performance.

FAIR expects to achieve the following results in this area:

  • Civil society and the public have effective means to engage in the dialogue with decisions makers regarding judicial reform;
  • The Ukrainian public are engaged in the judicial reform process though civic education and advocacy activities;
  • CSOs have means and opportunities to effectively monitor the implementation of judicial sector reforms and provide oversight to judicial operations.

FAIR’s partners under this component are:

  • State Judicial Administration of Ukraine,
  • High Qualifications Commission of Ukraine,
  • Council of Judges of Ukraine,
  • Ministry of Justice,
  • Individual courts,
  • CSOs,
  • Parliamentary working groups,
  • Media outlets.